Flowers: Memory Carriers

Plant Wisdom, Ancestral Connection, and Messages from Flowers

As spring unveils itself around me, I've been walking daily through the gardens with a sense of awe—surrounded by the scent of blossoms and the songs of birds, and the soft hum of bees returning. It brought me back to something I began writing a couple of years ago—for a book still unfolding—which I’d like to share with you today.

We use flowers as messengers to convey our feelings of love, sorrow, and happiness to loved ones, but our relationship to flowers and their symbolic use is far older.

Evidence of flowers being used ritually as early as 50,000 years ago was unearthed by researchers in the 1970s at a Neandertal burial cave in northern Iraq. They theorized, based on pollen found in the cave, that burials included the use of flowers. While this theory has been debated, archaeologists in 2005 discovered that early humans did definitively bury their dead in beds of flowers beginning about 13,700 years ago, in what is now Israel.

Flowers and Our Ancient Connection

The history of human use of medicinal plants predates our written history.

Archaeological evidence has been found of medicinal plants, like opium poppies and cannabis, in cave dwellings from 60,000 years ago.

Healing systems based on plants—Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine—are thousands of years old. Ancient Greece laid foundations for Western medicine through teachings of Hippocrates, Galen, Pliny, and others. The Middle Ages brought forth sacred texts like Materia Medica, honoring the power of herbs and flowers.

Listening to the Plants

Medicinal plants and flowers have always spoken to us.

To shamans. To healers. To seekers. To dreamers.

They communicate through visions, dreams, and quiet urgings—often in response to need. Did you know that we have receptors in our DNA for specific healing plants and flowers? These genetic memories are a bridge to ancestral knowledge. They root us in lineage and the land.

Imagine a medicine person walking across a meadow in a dream state, seeking a cure for an ailing loved one. A plant answers the call—offering its medicine, its message. That knowing lives in you. Carried in your cells. Passed through time like an invisible thread, anchoring you to your ancestors and to the Earth.

Flowers Bring All Life Into Being

Nearly all the food we eat—what our pets, livestock, and wild kin eat—begins with a flower, visited by a bee, a butterfly, a pollinator. This sacred dance has carried life forward for millennia. We would not be here if it weren’t for flowers.

But this perfect system is in peril.

Since 2008, honeybee colonies have collapsed by the hundreds of thousands. Wild bees, flies, bats, butterflies—all are declining. Their loss is tied to climate change, habitat destruction, and the widespread use of pesticides. These pollinators are essential to our survival. They are disappearing.

One of the gardens in summer at Alchemy Farm

This Spring, Two Invitations

Plant with Purpose
Whether it’s a corner of your garden, a balcony pot, or hanging basket—plant something that supports pollinators. Think of this as both a gift and a gesture of remembering, and of hope. Each blossom a prayer for the future.

Choose native flowers whenever possible, and look for heritage or organic seeds. If you’re buying plant starts, consider supporting local farmers markets or community gardening groups.

If purchasing from a larger store, don’t hesitate to ask if the plants were treated with neonictinoids. These chemicals are toxic to pollinators—even the flowers meant to feed them can become poison if grown with these pesticides.

Practice Sacred Attention
Find time this week to sit with a flower or plant—really be with it. Observe its color, shape, scent, and energy. Let your gaze soften. Let your senses open. And listen with your heart. Flowers speak in silence, in symbols, in subtle impressions.

What message might this flower have for you today?

What medicine or memory stirs as you listen?

Let these small, soulful acts reconnect you—to Earth, to your ancestors, and to the living world that holds us all.

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This Week’s Message from the Gardens

Calendula — Serenity ~ Gratitude
from the Alchemy Flower Oracle

There are plant and spirit beings waiting to help you bring more positive light and healing energy to the Earth.

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May this week guide you into deeper presence.

What medicine is blooming around you—and within you?

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